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This was a big week for comics: Infinite Crisis #5, Batman Annual #25, and a bunch of DC 1-Year Later titles. Even though I'm clearly biased in DC's favor, Marvel trumped them all this week with Ultimates Vol. 2 #10. The bad guys have taken over not only New York City, but many key cities within the United States. It is clearly a reaction against the Ultimates storming into the Middle East at the beginning of this series. There's a Muslim version of Captain America, a Russian version of Thor, and opposite numbers for Hulk, Ant-Man, Iron Man, and Quicksilver. We're still unclear as to Loki's true role. One thing I can't figure out: why are all the bad guys meeting in the Louvre? The French aren't that crazy to sanction terrorists in their own city, but what the heck, Millar loves to pick on them.

Hawkeye makes his way out of a nearly impossible situation. It happens so fast, I was bewildered. Then when I read the explanation and saw what happened afterward--this version of Hawkeye is freakin' cool! I love the Avengers version--Clint Barton was always a cool customer, but this one's more on par with Bullseye. I never thought about that before--what if Bullseye joined a team and fought the good fight? Genius idea.

I'm betting that the Hulk returns before all of this is over to stomp the Abomination's ass. And I will also bet that Donald Trump would love to have Tony Stark's pre-nuptial agreement. Nuff said.

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Ultimate Avengers can't possibly match the brilliant graphic novel by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, but it does a pretty good job of trying. The movie is aimed at a PG-13 audience, so there are no wife-beating Giant-Men, drunken millionaires, or horny Hulks looking for Betty, although Jarvis still looks a bit gay. The plot follows Millar's outline remarkably close at times, especially with the opening World War 2 sequence involving Captain America (although he doesn't use a gun). Steve Rogers is the main focus, and the film does keep all the bits about being displaced in time. Millar said that when he envisioned the Ultimates, he thought of it as Avengers: The Movie. His introduction of the main characters and the buildup to the first fight would work great in a big budget feature film. Imagine if you had Samuel Jackson (Nick Fury), Tom Cruise (Tony Stark), Brad Pitt (Thor), and Lucy Liu (Janet Van Dyne) all in the same movie? Alas, we don't get the same talent here, as Andre Ware's voice for Nick Fury isn't what I imagined. The animation is what I would call competent, but it's not really as good as most anime or even the Justice League Unlimited series. They did use all of Bryan Hitch's character designs. Iron Man in particular looks so fantastic, I don't know why they wouldn't make an entire TV show around the character.

The plot deviates from the graphic novel in a number of ways besides toning down the adult misbehavior. Iron Man needs to be coerced into joining, which is a bit weird. Bruce Banner's mental deterioration isn't handled as gracefully. The aliens are the main threat, and the Hulk goes berserk after that is over, but he doesn't rampage throughout New York City. There were some great scenes that they could have used: the Hulk knocking Giant-Man into a skyscraper, or Captain America dropping the tank on the Hulk. Why didn't they go for it? I question whether all Ultimates fans will like Ultimate Avengers, but I do think that all longtime Marvel and Avengers fans will be thrilled to see these characters in animated form. Ironically enough, younger viewers may be turned off by the slow buildup to the action. Nuff said.

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Iron Man #5 (by Warren Ellis and Ari Granov) came out this week. My records indicate that issue #4 came out around August; I don't know if this is really true but it was a long time ago! The series is hurt by these delays, as the story structure is decompressed storytelling at its peak. Issue #1 sets up the new villain (a terrorist injected with Extremis nanotechnology) and Tony Stark takes a ride in his Iron Man armor. Issue #2 has Tony taking a trip to see an old friend while the terrorist starts killing people. Issue #3 they fight. Issue #4, Iron Man is critically injured when the terrorist drops a car on him. And in the latest issue, we get to the meat of the story--Tony undergoes a dramatic change in order to survive. I'm not a big fan of decompressed storytelling, but this particular tale has me hooked (although I'd advise anyone to wait for the trade). Ellis' new technology for Iron Man is fascinating to me for a few reasons. One, throughout the last 40 years, there's been a constant need to make Tony Stark's life depend on technology. Two, Ellis is competing with Orson Scott Card, who has revamped the Ultimate version of Iron Man.

Way back in Tales of Suspense 39 (the first appearance of Iron Man), Stan Lee wrote the classic origin. While Tony Stark is visiting Vietnam (working with military on new weapons), he steps on a landmine and gets captured by the Vietcong. A piece of shrapnel is lodged near his heart. General Wong Chu tells Stark to build him a new weapon and in return, he'll save Stark's life. Yeah, right, buddy, you just gave Stark free access to a lab--he's going to kick your butt! This was how that scene looked when it was drawn by Don Heck, but it's constantly been retold and revamped through the ages.

Archie Goodwin and Gene Colan recapped the origin in Iron Man #1 a few years later. Tony was helped by Professor Ho Yinsen to build the first Iron Man armor. Not only would it help Tony kick butt, it would keep him alive by stabilizing his heart beat. Kind of like a pacemaker, which didn't exist in such a small form in the 1960s.

Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen also revisited this scene in Iron Man #1, volume 3. Pretty much the same story. Tony's dependence on the armor to keep his heart beating was a useful plot device. He would fight a baddie, get his power depleted, and limp over to Avengers Mansion, where Jarvis would plug his chestplate in for a battery recharge.

Flash forward to 2005, with Ellis and Granov's version of the origin in Iron Man #5, volume 4. This updates the origin, getting us out of Vietnam and into the Afghanistan invasion. Marvel time, ain't it great! As we saw previously in issue #1, Stark was injured in Afghanistan while working with the military. The twist is that he was injured by one of his own landmines. He's taken prisoner by Al Qaeda, but we don't see a General, Bin Laden, or anyone in charge. His predicament is explained by Ho Yinsen, who again helps him build the armor that will save his life. Pretty incredible that the terrorists leave those guys the fuck alone for hours or days to build this incredible weapon!

What happens when puts on this armor for the first time? In the Stan Lee version, he falls down and stumbles before he gets good feel for it. Professor Yinsen distracts the Vietcong and gets killed while Stark is getting his act together.

In the Ellis version, it's time for revenge. His armor still resembles the grey prototype from Tales of Suspense 39. Presumably because the room that Stark and Yinsen were in had old computers and outdated electronics. We don't really see Yinsen get killed in this version, maybe he's still alive.

Even though Ellis has updated the origin, we still have to assume that some of the pre-existing continuity is still intact. What happened to that pesky shrapnel in Stark's heart? It was removed and Stark's heart was repaired with artificial tissue. Archie Goodwin wrote this issue, but later on, many other writers regretted losing this device.

David Micheline and Bob Layton were one of the greatest creative teams on Iron Man, serving two stints on the book (116-157 and 215-250). Tony Stark became a hedonistic playboy, resembling a modern day Richie Rich with his vehicles, mansions, and babes. One of the women, Kathy Dare, couldn't get over being dumped and shot Tony in issue 242 (volume 1). The bullet grazed Tony's spinal cord and left him unable to walk. But he could walk and fly--as Iron Man! He got an operation in issue 248, where a microchip implanted into his spine allowed Tony to walk again. Later, this chip was hacked and it caused Tony to be trapped inside the Iron Man armor.

In the Ellis version, we also have to assume that Tony's shrapnel situation has been resolved. He gets pretty banged up during the fight with the Extremis terrorist. It's so bad he can't lift a bloody car off his chest. Stark is seriously injured. Whatcha gonna do?

Tony works with the scientist who helped create the Extremis nanotechnology, who just happens to be an old girlfriend. He gets shot up with a specially configured dose of this Extremis goo, and he becomes a living, breathing nano-machine. I don't want to show it here and spoil it, because it's rather cool. Suffice to say that Tony's life is intertwined with the tech and the Iron Man armor will now once again fit into a briefcase. Although I didn't see a Tivo in there.

Now here's the interesting part. At the same time that Ellis is revamping old Marvel Universe Iron Man, Orson Scott Card is doing the same thing for Ultimate Iron Man. Card just throws out that business about being in a war and captured by terrorists. He looks at the problem with Tony Stark needing technology to save his life. Card asks, why wasn't it that way from the beginning? We see how Howard Stark, Tony's father, developed a nano bio-armor that protects the wearer from physical harm. His mother, Maria, is working on a regeneration virus that will help missing limbs grow back. She's accidentally infected with the virus while pregnant with Tony. On a fetus, the virus causes Tony's neural tissue to develop at an advanced rate. Tony will be a super-genius kid, but his skin will feel like a bad third degree burn. Right after he's born (and his mother dies), Howard pours the bio-armor over the baby to protect him. Tony has to wear the bio-armor everyday for the rest of his life!

So which origin is cooler, Ellis or Card's? I like what Ellis is doing, but Card's premise is such a departure that I love it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for super-smart kids like in Ender's Game and I love seeing that with Tony Stark. I'm not yet sure why a regeneration virus can grow back Tony's foot in issue 3, but it can't fix his burning skin or his brain tumor in the Ultimates. We are still in the early stages of both revamps, so it will be interesting to see where they go from here. Nuff said.

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The best of this week's comics is Ultimates V2 #9. Millar and Hitch really hit this one out of the park. The scenes with Hawkeye and Black Widow are great. And it looks like Thor really isn't that crazy. At the end of the issue, things are so bad that I don't even see how the Ultimates can turn things around. The rampant spread of various technologies (Hank Pym's size changing, Iron Man's tech armor, Super Soldier serum) have created this incredible army against the Ultimates. I'm betting that "Hulk will save day" before it's all over.

I'll be out of town for a few days and probably can't update this site. But I gotta say this is a must-have comic. Nuff said.

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I usually don’t enjoy revamps. No matter how cheesy a comic or movie might have been in the 60s or 70s, it possessed a spirit that today’s creators can’t often match. The original X-Men series by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas, and Werner Roth had funky villains like The Mimic and soap opera machinations between Scott Summers and Jean Grey. When Marvel decided to re-imagine this as Ultimate X-Men, the results were mixed. They erased all the lovable qualities of the characters that made them so unforgettable in favor of Jerry Bruckheimer style action. I had written off the Ultimate line of comics for good, and when the updated version of The Avengers appeared, I didn’t buy it until the trade paperback appeared. And I was glad I did, because unlike the other series, this one has heart. Mark Millar spent the time to explore each of the characters before sending them off into action. He updated the series in a way that made sense, by having everyone look at Thor as if he were a nut job and Bruce Banner as a misanthropic nerd. The first trade paperback introduced the Ultimates, while the second put them into action against an updated version of the Skulls.

Now the third arc is complete and you can probably get them all in comic stores today. Pick up Marvel Must Haves with Ultimates V2 1-3, and then get single issues 4-6. Rather than having one story spread among six issues, Millar breaks it up into smaller stories that form a mystery. In the first three issues, someone leaks to the media that the Hulk is really Bruce Banner and the whole massacre of innocent New Yorkers was really the Ultimates’ fault. The Hulk goes on trial and is defended by Matt Murdock. Those old timers in the audience will remember the issue of the 70s Hulk where he got the same defense attorney. Unlike that story, this one concludes as it probably would in the real world, but I don’t understand why the government chooses this particular method of execution. Ultimates V2 4-5 deal with the origins of Thor: is he really a Norse God or is he another super soldier variant? A scientist in Europe, Thor’s brother, claims to have invented the hammer and harness that gives Thor his powers. Thor says that this fellow is really Loki who is bending reality and causing the Ultimates to turn against him. The Ultimates go after Thor and it isn’t your regular superhero slugfest.

Now that we are almost halfway into 2005, I thought it was appropriate to look back at 2004’s notable graphic collections featuring super-heroes and super-teams. There were many memorable tales, and if you’re just getting back into comics, they’re all nicely collected and ready to read. Nearly all of them were involved in re-interpreting classic super-hero myths.

Fantastic Four, Vol. 2: Now there I go, contradicting myself once again, like I’m Jimmy Carter or something. (Dad would have a fit.) Mark Waid's Fantastic Four doesn't re-invent Marvel's first family as much as re-invigorate it. The story involves the aftermath of the team’s recent collision with Dr. Doom. Instead of just waiting for Doom to reappear and wreck havoc in their lives, Reed Richards decides to invade Doom’s country Latveria and dismantle the good Doctor’s infrastructure. This move naturally upsets the United Nations and S.H.I.E.L.D., so Nick Fury gets involved with orders to take down the FF. You’ve never seen Reed Richards like this: angry, driven, and proactive in taking steps to remove the world’s greatest super-villain. Yet it seems like Marvel super-heroes can’t act this way without paying a terrible price. It all concludes in a journey that has the FF paying tribute to their Creator. Mike Wieringo is right up there with the classic FF pantheon of artists. The Thing has never looked so good since Kirby and Byrne drew him, and The Torch's red-glow flame-on is a take on Alan Davis' approach. Ringo is able assisted by Paul Mounts on the colors, who makes the Thing's rocky hide seem three dimensional. Sue Storm ain't bad lookin' either, in a MILF kind of way. I sure wish that Gail O'Grady could play Sue, did you ever see "Sex & the Single Mom" on Lifetime? Watching that allowed me to process the grief I felt when Mark Waid left the FF. Nuff said, but if you like classic FF tales, you’ll love this collection.